"Nappy-headed who'es" redux

[Scot LaFaive]

>FWIW, BE-speakers can use 'nap(s)" to mean "the hair on one's head."

So could one get one's "nap(s) cut" as in get one's "hair cut"? What about
getting a "nap-cut" like getting a "hair-cut"? And is this only the hair on
top of the head?

Scot LaFaive


>From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Reply-To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: "Nappy-headed who'es" redux
>Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 12:07:35 -0400
>
>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject:      "Nappy-headed who'es" redux
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Boston Globe's language maven has an interesting discussion of
>European attempts to translate the "nappy-" in "nappy-headed."
>Apparently, no European language has a term that corresponds in
>meaning to the American use of "nappy" as a descriptor of human hair.
>Briefly, Britspeak has "nappy" as "covered with nap" or as a slang
>term for "napkin" as the equivalent of U.S. "diaper." Hence, British
>journalists have decided that "nappy-headed" means something like
>"wearing a diaper-like cloth, such as a bandanna, as a headdress,"
>cf., e.g. the old Aunt-Jemima, fact-based stereotype. Continental
>journalists, following their British peers and their own
>native-language-to-British-English dictionaries, have done the same.
>
>That is to say, translation of the European terms back to U.S.-English
>yields American-BE "handkerchief-head(ed)." This strikes me as close /
>good enough for government work.
>
>FWIW, BE-speakers can use 'nap(s)" to mean "the hair on one's head."
>
>-Wilson
>--
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

_________________________________________________________________
Like the way Microsoft Office Outlook works? You’ll love Windows Live
Hotmail.
http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_migration_HM_mini_outlook_0507

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org